


The Deep Breath

by ltoadreamer



Series: At The Sunrise [1]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:48:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24402310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ltoadreamer/pseuds/ltoadreamer
Summary: In the 4th Era, 202, the great Dragonborn known as Arson slew the World Eater Alduin, first dragon son of the god Akatosh, and saved all of Nirn from destruction. Who he really was was not known. How he came to be was never told. Until now. Perhaps though, we should start from the beginning.
Series: At The Sunrise [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1762102
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	1. 0

WARNING: This story contains Suicidal Thoughts, Suicidal Actions, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Alcohol Abuse, PTSD, Depression, Arson, Starvation, and lots of feels and tears from the author. None of this is intended to be glamorized. This story is not meant to glorify any of it. This story is about the most human side of painful things, from an inside perspective. This story will hurt to read, perhaps almost as much as it hurt to write so much of it. Some things will be written in extreme detail, and these things may be triggering, and for this I apologize in advance. No one deserves to go through the torture that I put this character through but some of you do experience it. I wish that it didn’t happen at all but it does. And I hope that for those of you who see themselves reflected in this story, I hope that you might find light and love. You fight a war every day. You deserve better.

Please don’t be afraid to comment on anything with this story. Tell me things you like, you dislike, things you find inaccurate, accurate, sickening, helpful, and please please please tell me why. It’s the only way I can improve as an author.

All my love to each and every one of you.

Sincerely,

The Author

(PS. Beginning Warning of each chapter will be updated as additional warning tags pop up so you will have a heads up at the beginning of each chapter of what is to come)

¤

_Shit, shit, shit, fuck!_

The flames were spreading fast, too fast, and not everyone was accounted for.

“Come on, come on!” Linwe shouted as another came into view and ushered them through the doorframe where the spell caught and whisked them away from existence.

Dozens of fire runes had been spread out across the library, each one situated just far enough apart that they would go off with enough heat but their destruction wouldn’t block escapes.

Everyone on the job should be able to escape.

He could hear the Master Archivist shouting for aid, and the white light of frost magic being cast closer to the entrance and two of the three doorways the Thalmor could access the hall of archives from.

Another shot of frost magic came down from the second floor’s balcony and he swore.

He was still waiting on one more.

Undil was supposed to do rounds and make sure the area was clear before the runes were set to go off and he hadn’t seen that damned boy yet!

A shadow in the fires and he let out a startled breath, leaving his post by the door to get to him.

Damn boy was ashed and hair frayed with the heat, too close to a rune when it went off, and he was dragging a civilian worse off than him.

_Shit!_

No one was supposed to get hurt, Undil was supposed to steer people away from the zone.

No one was supposed to get hurt, and as he moved to help, he saw the bloodied and burnt wounds across his face and shoulders. Young too. About the same age as Undil. He had to be a student of the Academy.

He wasn’t breathing either.

“Shit. He’s already gone.”

Undil didn’t let go of the body, his fingers digging into the ruined fabric. “You have to let him go, there’s nothing we can do!” Linwe urged, shaking him.

Both of their heads snapped up as they heard the shouts.

They were out of time.

Thalmor were closing in on them.

Breaking away from the damn boy, Linwe put his shoulder and all his body weight into one of the burning book shelves, tipping it and letting it sway before his next shove managed to topple it over and cascade it into the next.

If they were lucky, the chaos would delay them just long enough.

“Come on,” he yelped at Undil, almost dragging him away from the body and shoving him through the doorframe, watching his shape briefly shift before the magic took over properly and the image dissolved.

He counted to five before he felt along the frame for the fasteners of the magic, wiping them away with the whispered incantation, fire roaring with an explosion, a bookshelf completely decimated by a spell to clear a path with the shards of burning wood scattering around him.

Linwe barely looked back as he stepped into the last lingering moments of the spell to see the civilian who didn’t make it, fire catching on his clothes from the sparking splinters as another bookshelf became easy kindling.

“Sorry,” he murmured.

Between was a place he hated, where one end of the transportation spell latched to another, and his knees buckled after the split second that felt like eternity that there was no light, no warmth, no air to breathe and he was right where they needed to be, the passage map anchored just twelve miles out of the city.

Except he almost fell over Undil.

Damn boy should have gotten out of the way as soon as he popped out the other side but he was just collapsed in on himself under the sunlight, entire body shaking.

Soot drifted into the sky as hair that should have been a dusty red ruffled like harvest wheat when the wind picked up and with stunned horror, his eyes met the others who looked between each other, already realizing the truth.

This wasn’t Undil.

_Shit_.


	2. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This story contains Suicidal Thoughts, Suicidal Actions, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Alcohol Abuse, PTSD, Depression, Arson, Starvation, and lots of feels and tears from the author. None of this is intended to be glamorized. This story is not meant to glorify any of it. This story is about the most human side of painful things, from an inside perspective. This story will hurt to read, perhaps almost as much as it hurt to write so much of it. Some things will be written in extreme detail, and these things may be triggering, and for this I apologize in advance. No one deserves to go through the torture that I put this character through but some of you do experience it. I wish that it didn’t happen at all but it does. And I hope that for those of you who see themselves reflected in this story, I hope that you might find light and love. You fight a war every day. You deserve better.  
> Please don’t be afraid to comment on anything with this story. Tell me things you like, you dislike, things you find inaccurate, accurate, sickening, helpful, and please please please tell me why. It’s the only way I can improve as an author.  
> All my love to each and every one of you.  
> Sincerely,  
> The Author  
> (PS. Beginning Warning of each chapter will be updated as additional warning tags pop up so you will have a heads up at the beginning of each chapter of what is to come)

Worn spires reached skywards in polished gold on a sunny day, the light almost blinding to those who had gathered to observe the spectacle that had come to occur. For all their long lives in the Summerset Isle, this was not something that one saw often, but here they were, the city of Skywatch gathered as five different heads of family and twenty eight individuals spanning four generations walked in attendance to the funeral.

At the head of the Elsinlock clan was the mother of the boy who had been killed in the arson of the Hall of Archives, immediately followed by two boys with the same face as him.

Once there had been three golden faces with the same set of low straight brows above soft downturned amber eyes and a mild but broad nose who lived in the Summerset Isle’s Skywatch, pariah heirs of a once proud family tricked by a father who had been nothing but a liar and blood traitor, but now there were only two: the thin eldest whose gaunt cheeks and straight back held all the weight of his family’s expectations on his shoulders and the middle child, a mere blacksmith’s apprentice, whose features were swollen and red and tears actively dripping down his flushed cheeks in his misery.

They’d never see their younger brother again.

All that remained of him was contained in a golden urn carried in the arms of a woman who was beautiful in the ways all highborn Altmer women were with her standardly high cheekbones, thin sharp lips, upturned nose, and almond shaped eyes that were lined with kohl, no shadow to enhance the sharpness of her cheeks or shade to make her eyes look more golden than brass, dressed like all others in the colors of grief instead of the charcoal and gold coat of her career she wore like a second skin.

It was her expression though that told a different story of her thoughts as she lead the retreat into the mausoleum so that her son could be placed amongst his ancestors who passed before, guarded and protected by the priests of Xarxes.

Already she was affected by the whispered rumors that had gone on for weeks that Loriel Elsinlock had been involved in the very arson that had caused his death, rumors that could cause immeasurable harm to the reputation of his mother no matter if true or false.

In truth, there was no way of knowing though if he was.

All they could do was speculate.

The dead were allowed to hold their secrets in Alinor and it would be cruel and unnatural to encourage the spirits of the dearly departed to linger if only to answer questions that were had. As long as there was no concrete proof of his guilt, Loriel’s spirit would be allowed to be mourned and remembered with honor so that now that he was free of his bodily prison, he would be reunited with their Aedric ancestors in Aetherius.

As long as the truth was never found out, Undil would bear witness to the orderly and blissful passage to the next world in another’s place.

Linwe lingered among the bystanders who had stopped to gawk for several moments longer before the crowd began to disperse and he went too, jarring shoulders with a sharply dressed snob who was too busy glowering in disdain at the funeral procession to really miss his wallet too much.

The summer sun fell warm upon his shoulders as he walked, musing over what had been seen and what was to be seen with every arching building that he passed, the quiet of the mourn bleeding into the norm as the merchants of the market hawked their wares and pedestrians mulled about their daily lives with work and school, routine in every breath with changes to the cycle forever coming like waves off the ocean, groceries filling his hands as he bought and stole little extras here and there and moved on, the life he lived above ground one for all to see but as he settled into the shadows, a little knock on twist of a cellar and whispered words as he slipped inside, none would be the wiser to know.

The quiet of the underground welcomed him as he gave away his parcel and went to check in on their little fool.

“How was it?” Aiden asked.

“A funeral good as any. Rumors are rumors but there’s no real ground attached to him. Just a kid in the wrong place at the wrong time is majority vote.”

“Thalmor suspect anything?”

“Not obviously, no, but the longer he’s near anyone who recognizes him, the sooner we can expect them to find out what’s going on.”  
“Don’t get smart, we’ve got something figured out for your little problem.”

His little problem.

His responsibility.

The dead stayed underground and Loriel wasn’t dead, that was the truth of the matter.

The boy was traumatized and because of his little mistake in dragging the idiot through the portal, he had gotten tied up into their mess too. They couldn’t let him waltz out of there and talk. They had to cover up a mistake with another mistake.

Funny part was that the boy didn’t seem to mind.

_I’m better off dead anyway._

The words haunted Linwe when Loriel had spoken them, looking small and calm and quiet and somehow wrong when they had explained why they didn’t just let him off. Couldn’t. There was a job and he was a witness to the crime. He didn’t care. Undil was dead and he wasn’t. Loriel was missing and Undil, no one on the surface would ever notice he had been gone.

A body was a body.

And Loriel.

Well.

He accepted the idea of slipping under the shadows.

Of going somewhere far away and starting something new.

It was good. It made things easier.

He was young though, with so much life ahead of him.

It was unnerving how easily Loriel just accepted this all. They didn’t have to threaten him, they didn’t have to course him into keeping his mouth shut. Just ship him off to someplace new and let the world forget his name.

It _bothered_ Linwe.

It _bothered_ him because this was a Loriel he knew too well.

The boy laid curled up on his side on his cot, staring at the lit candle on the side table.

It blinked out.

And then relit itself.

“Stop that,” Linwe grumbled, nudging the end of the cot with his foot before he sat down.

A tip of his jaw and the boy sat up.

Dim light did wonders to faces and Linwe sighed at how much he looked like his brothers.

Damn him for being an identical triplet.

“You’re officially dead. Congratulations,” Linwe told him as he tossed the boy a thing, “your ex looked like he was about to start a riot.”

The wallet landed in his hands neatly and Loriel let out a breath. “No loss there,” he murmured.

“His loss is your gain. Hold onto that, you’ll need it for when you get to Bravil.”

The boy looked back to the candle, distracted, lost.

“When?”

He was so quiet he almost missed it.

The reluctance would calm and come to an end once he was safe, he would collapse inward, and rebuild himself up again stronger than before, just like he did last time.

Reyes had been where Linwe sat the last time it happened, picked up all the little pieces he didn’t know he had dropped and put him back together.

Loriel was resilient like that.

He was a survivor.

He came through the jump, he came through with Reyes, he came through the fire. He’d come through it in the end.

“A week. You’ll get on a passenger ship from Vulkhen Guard with one of ours, he’s got business and will be able to help you set up shop while he’s there.”

“Just like that.”

Linwe nodded. “Just like that.”

A lot of work was going into this, not that Loriel needed to know. Everyone knew it would be simpler to just slit his throat and dump the body but… histories and connections and emotions made things a complicated mess.

If Loriel didn’t get that fresh start, it would just weigh on all of them.

They had to do it, at least for Reyes’s sake.

Damn the poor dead bastard.

“He always did say he was going to take me to see Cyrodiil,” Loriel whispered, almost fond.

And Linwe smiled.

Damn the poor dead bastard.

“That he did.”

-

In the early morning light that peeked in through the windows, all five cowlicks drove his hair in directions like madness, the new length making it ionly that much easier to look a mess with his arms twisted around his head, guarding it as he curled in on himself with a puddle of drool darkening his sleeve. Sometime during the early hours, the boy had finally drifted off and sleeping as he did, Linwe couldn’t stop but remember he was still so incredibly young.

At not quite half a century Loriel was still just a child, try as his mother had to hide the truth after all that had happened with her husband, their father. They were mixed blooded and it would affect how he aged. Loriel would look old long before his peers would. He would be old long before Linwe himself.

Maybe one day he would be lucky enough to check in on the boy and see he had grown into a happy old man, living his life safe and sound and comfortable.

He owed Reyes that much at least.

His best friend should have been the one getting on this boat with Loriel. He’d never shut up about how one day he’d open up a tavern where he could sling drinks while this beautiful Altmer boy sang his heart out on a lute. Maybe one day he’d even by the old Bretonese piano they had at the hideout, the very one the bard had taught Loriel how to play on because Dvivines knew he’d never really be able to afford a new one, at least not by legal methods anyway.

But instead, now all that was left of Reyes was his name carved into a stone by the ruins of Hightide Keep, and in a few short hours, Loriel would be getting on a boat to Cyrodiil with a stranger.

Once, Loriel had an amulet of his most beloved god from Reyes, Bosmeri in design and made of bone, and he had worn it without failure, like it was an extension of his own self.

Now the mark on the back of his neck was all that lingered of the chain from when it had snapped, and it was covered up by a new necklace, one pendanted by an old and warped bit of metal, small and round like a coin and enchanted like the so many others that every Shadow in the guild wore to keep from being followed and found.

It would keep him safe when the Shadows weren’t around.

He clutched is like a lifeline in his sleep.

Like it was the only thing left tying him to Reyes.

Linwe felt bad for having to wake him but it was growing near the hour of departure and they still needed to find his escort before they approached the pier. He felt even worse when he woke the boy up, seeing how he tensed under his hand, immediately alert at the slightest contact.

“Sun’s coming quick. We need to be there before its time,” he said, letting him sit up and he caught his hand before he could try to comb his hair out with his fingers, “keep it chaos, kid. We didn’t spend that time with the scissors and coffee for nothing.”

He was, after all, disguised by a little.

Shoulder length wheat colored hair was gone, cut down to curl around his ears and stick up, making him look years younger and wider eyed, innocent, a heavy roast pot of captain’s blend soaked into his hair until it was stained shades closer to walnut.

He looked more mixed.

And with the very puritan culture the Isle had, it would help. No one would give him a second glance for wanting to get off this rock. In fact, most would say it was preferable that he did.

And he would.

The chance of Loriel ever coming back was slim.

If he did, it would probably be in a box. With a Thalmor escort.

A finely dressed middle class merchant looking fellow shot them a bleary eyed look over the cup of coffee he was nursing at the bar as they settled beside him and ordered their breakfast, wordless until the waiter walked away to put in their request in.

“Took your sweet time showing up.”

“I would be less offended if you didn’t look like you just rolled out of bed, Gerrick. How unprofessional of you.”

The Ayleid researcher scowled at him fiercely before his gaze slid to the quieter individual of his company and sipped his coffee. “What’s your name, boy?”

Loriel froze in his seat, startled silent until Gerrick repeated his question more sharply, “your name.”

“Yakov,” he squeaked out.

It was one of the safest names the Shadows could figure out, common enough on the island these days that he would be safe when he left.

Gerrick frowned.

“Look at me. Fully.”

Linwe watched in silence, the terror that immediately soaked into the boy’s tense shoulders for threadbare moments before all emotion slipped away and he turned in his seat to give Gerrick his full attention, the man staring down his long narrow nose at the boy, silence palatable as golden eyes flicked over his face, analyzing every feature like it was tarnish on a valuable item.

And finally, he looked away to drink his coffee.

“Imperial. Or Breton. Not Nord or Redguard, it would show up in the meat of you. Or _that_ would show up in your hair for generations. Not that the humans will noticed that or your age. But it will serve well enough,” he stated in a droll tone after a long and slow swallow, putting down the empty cup. “Eat quick. The earlier we are, the faster we can sweep you away from watchful eyes.”

The thief rolled his eyes and was grateful their food arrived as quickly as it did, not caring to listen to Gerrick’s prattle any more than they absolutely had to and although he knew Loriel didn’t feel like it—he hadn’t eaten properly in weeks even though it was fully available to him—he ate like he had an appetite.

“We’ll be expecting reports on his well being, Gerrick. _Regular_ reports. You know; Make sure that he’s happy. Maybe drop by every so often,” Linwe informed him casually as he took a cautious sip of his own brew, the bitter taste washing across his tongue with acid—he hated coffee.

“Strange for your kind to care so much.”

“We always take care of our own.”

He noted the slightest pause in Loriel’s eating, but made no comment.

“How come he doesn’t stay with family then?”

“He’s a First Seeder. You know they don’t do well in our path.”

The statement made Gerrick’s thin brows shoot up towards his dark hairline, and for a moment Linwe wondered if he should actively regret admitting when Loriel was born. Some Mer were terribly superstitious, not taking a single step without consulting almanacs of the stars and moons and sun, birthsigns deep among them, and apparently Gerrick was among them as he immediately hauled his pack from the floor onto his lap and dragged out his own personal almanac to flip through with eagerness.

The Lord was a noble sign, one of leaders and hard workers, and it was also auspicious.

Gerrick settled on a page and fell quiet.

Loriel didn’t stare, just kept focused on his plate, steadily eating, but Linwe watched the Ayleid researcher grow too giddy for his personal tastes.

“Oh yes, wonderful. This is very good indeed. Traveling East is favorable for his sign. Good. Good.”

And the thief rose a skeptical brow.

“Share with the class?” he grumbled.

Gerrick scoffed, closing the book with a snap that made Loriel’s still for a brief moment, “I never travel with partners expected to have worse luck than I.”

“And how bad is your luck expected to be.”

“Not as good as his.”

_That’s at least a little bit of a relief…_

Gerrick remained smug with himself as Loriel finished eating in silence, empty plate snatched away and the researcher rose to his feet. “Come. We’re leaving.”

Gerrick made Loriel carry his pack as they made their way down to the docks, his head down and following closely, arms clutched awkwardly around his charge as the researcher finally made it to the captain to check both he and his escort in, and Linwe took that moment to make Loriel pause.

“Hey.”

He looked up at him, so impossibly young and innocent and strangely old and wise all at once.

“Last night was the last night of your last life,” Linwe told him. “Live well in this new life, Yakov.”

The smile the boy graced him with was bittersweet.

“Thank you.”

His voice was barely there, mournful and scared, but hopeful.

And as that young man stepped onto the ship after Gerrick at the head of the crowd for the passenger ship, Linwe marveled and mused to himself, when would he see him again.

What would he be like?

This was the last time he would see Loriel as himself.

But it would not be the last time.

He could feel it in his bones.

-

The boy carried his bag like a lifeline of great importance, clutched tight to his chest, prioritized carefully, logically, and he was silent, obedient to his every breath, aware that Gerrick all but owned his pitiful mongrel life.

If it wasn’t for the looming threat of the Summerset Shadows checking in on him fulfilling his promise of setting the boy up as an apprentice at the Printers Workhouse in Bravil where the most exciting thing he would have going on in his life would be unjamming the printing press, he would have simply shipped him off to wherever might offer the greatest price for the boy, maybe even send him off to Morrowind’s House of Dres if they were still in the business of slavery, he wasn’t sure they were, he didn’t hold interest in politics of that country, so far away from his focus of the Ayleids who once ruled Cyrodiil.

But no.

Yakov was to go to Bravil, and what coin Gerrick had been given to be his escort was all he would be getting as the result of his presence.

Pity.

He did not falter down the familiar path to the passenger dorms, the same on every Altmeri passenger ship he had ever taken across the Abecean Sea, and he scowled heavily when he slid the door open to his room and found nothing had been set up yet.

Perhaps they were too early.

When he turned around, he saw Yakov frozen in the doorway, staring at the bare room.

“You’ve never been on a passenger ship before,” he muttered, grabbing his bag from the boy’s startlingly slack arms and pulling it free. “Everything is put up when not in use. Usually everything is set up before boarding but it appears they are failing their duties today,” he grumbled, fingers running along the slits along the wall and he found the latch to pull down the fold of the table, putting his bag upon it.

The boy still stood in the doorway.

“Stop gaping like a halfwit and shut the door,” he snapped.

His ward jumped into action, following his every instruction in finishing setting up the room, pulling out the beds and chairs and neatly packing their things away into the chest, lighting the lamps and, after some hesitation, hurrying out the door to scold a crew member for not having everything already set up and brought in.

And Gerrick reveled in his newfound freedom to not have to do everything himself as he settled down at the table with his books.

Oh to have a servant.

Perhaps he would keep the boy when they reached Bravil instead. Of course, the Shadows would have to be informed but perhaps they wouldn’t mind.

Or perhaps not.

The luxury wore off within days of leaving the island behind when Yakov fainted in one of the halls. Shattered the bottle of wine Gerrick told him to fetch. It was a mess. The boy insisted he was fine, just felt a little dizzy, apologized to the crew who had to clean up his mess, and got another bottle before he dared to return. Gerrick heard about the incident anyway.

The sea did not agree with the boy, clearly, given his increased queasiness.

He had to admire the way the boy held his own though, he wasn’t dramatic about it, said it was nothing he couldn’t handle before he’d turn a shade of green whenever a wave was cut through by the boat, still obeyed Gerrick’s every order without question, no matter the hour.

But maybe if he hadn’t… then Gerrick would still be alive.


End file.
